Spring has arrived!!

Spring finally is in full swing after what seemed like a short and mild winter. The fruit trees are all blooming and are once again buzzing with bees. Also all the chickens are back to laying us lots of pretty eggs.

We finally got our first blue egg from our Ameraucana hens. AppleBelle was very excited since these are the hens she will be showing at the State Fair this year.

The tulips I planted last fall are beginning to bloom; and the garlic from last fall is looking like it will have a wonderful harvest.

We have decided to only grow heirloom veggies this year and ordered all our seeds from Sand Hill Preservation Center. We also will only be growing heirloom flowers, most of which we ordered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Both of these companies sell seeds which are GMO-free, which is surprisingly getting harder to find. We will no longer support any companies that sell gene-altering seeds, mostly because of all of the dangers and unknowns that are associated with them. I will now climb down off my soap-box.

I can grow snow

So far I'm only growing snow. Although I have some plans to grow other things, it seems that at this time of year the only thing that is growing is the snow. I'm awaiting the spring gardening catalogs, I'll be growing everything from seed this year. We had a lot of problems last year with the started plants we bought from Home Depot. It seems the little tags that tell you what kind of plants you are growing are not always what they say. So this year we are sticking with seeds. I'm still searching for a good source of Japanese veggie seeds. Now that I think of it, I'm still searching for a good source of anything Japanese. Two hours is too far to drive for Miso paste.

When we first arrived at the house these planters were bare; but with some love and time I now have a beautiful snow hedge.